Janese Bechtol, J.D., joined the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia in 1998 as a trial attorney in the Domestic Violence Section.  For the next five years she represented over 450 domestic violence survivors in obtaining and enforcing civil protection orders against their abusers.  She became chief of the section in October 2003 and since then has supervised from three to five attorneys representing domestic violence survivors, one attorney representing Adult Protective Services in guardianship proceedings, and various administrative staff members who support the attorneys and the city’s Domestic Violence Intake Centers.  She chairs the committee responsible for management of the intake centers which are comprised of seven public and private agencies, co-chairs the city’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, and continues to maintain a small trial caseload.

Ms. Bechtol graduated with distinction from Cornell University in 1991 and Stanford Law School in 1994.  Following law school, she fulfilled a four-year military commitment at the Pentagon as an Assistant General Counsel for the Department of the Army and as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army and later the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.